


Rainbow Dragon

by InventorOfStuff



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Drama, Gen, Martial Arts, Prequel, Wuxia, Xianxia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 11:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InventorOfStuff/pseuds/InventorOfStuff
Summary: A wanderer from the far East arrives in a land of illusions and chaos.





	Rainbow Dragon

**Author's Note:**

> I decided one day to write a story featuring one of my favorite Touhou characters, Hong Meiling. This ended up turning into a martial arts drama in the style of Asura's Wrath, Journey to the West, and lightly inspired by the xianxia genre which is receiving attention in the West. A few disclaimers: First: This story is amazingly violent. If the idea of gore or character death bothers you, you are not going to have a good time here. Second: I'm not even going to attempt to cover all the nuances and terminology of Japanese here - all words and dialect will be their closest English equivalent, if possible. Third: There's more than a little bit of OC involved, both in characters and situation, for reasons that will be made clear during the initial chapters. 
> 
> If none of these sound like a problem, then take a seat and enjoy the fruits of too much caffeine.

**Chapter One: The Wild Beast Appears - Mysterious Fist from the Far East!**

Aya was not fond of the rain. There were already dark clouds resting above Gensokyo as youkai roamed the land freely and battled one another for territory, while the humans who could not fight back were huddled together in small villages, dependent on tithes to their otherworldly overlords and the few remaining demon hunters who could stand against them. The last thing she needed was the weather being literal about it, causing a downpour that made travel difficult. It was a perfect mirror for what the land had become, a land filled with despair and desperation.

Where there was rain, there was thunder.

The girl of twenty-five years sighed as she busily wrote down her thoughts on a piece of parchment. Recording the second rainy day in a row was a chore – nothing of note had happened for the entire week she had been resting within this village. Right when she had arrived, a rainstorm had rolled in and refused to leave, like an unwelcome guest. And naturally, it was her job to detail every painstakingly boring little detail of it for her writings. Beyond that, the only alternative to mundane activity and boredom was chronicling the battles outside and the wars raging on beyond the boundaries of human civilization.

The chore was so mind-numbingly boring that she barely noticed the pen slipping out of her hand and it landing on the floor with a ‘click’ against the hardwood floor. “Oooh, damn it!” Cursing her own weakness, she knelt down to pick it up, hurriedly returning it to her hand. With the red pen safely in her hand again, she let out a soft sigh of relief. Need to be more careful, she thought to herself.

Her clumsy, half-hearted gesture had drawn a glance her way. The inn she was resting in had been sparse on guests, but there were two regulars she had seen – both men. One was a dark-haired man with his hair tied into a ponytail named Shiro. The blade tucked away at his side told her he was likely the guard for when the guests got rowdy, though he lacked the overwhelming presence she had seen in Demon Slayers – likely just an everyday ronin. The second was a steely-eyed man with blond hair, an amazingly rare trait in Gensokyo among humans, clad in a suit who carried himself with confidence and an almost derisive sneer. This was Makisa Kirisame, local good-for-nothing and general neer-do-well. Aya had written more than one paper on his many, many, many scams and schemes.

Unfortunately, it was him she had gotten the attention of.

“Little miss pen-and-paper having a bit of trouble?” Makisa taunted, a shark-like grin on his face as his teeth were displayed. Aya glared back at the man.

“I’m fine, Kirisame. And even if I wasn’t, you would be the last person I’d ever ask for help.” Aya said with a huff.

“Oooh, scary, scary!” Makisa raised his hands defensively and gave a look of mock innocence. “Can’t an old man offer a helping hand to a poor girl in need? Such a cruel devil from outside our humble village is staying in this place…!”

“Behave, Makisa.” Shiro warned, a hand resting on the handle of his blade. Makisa threw his arms up and leaned back in his seat with an exasperated sigh.

“And here comes noble samurai Shiro, here to slay the demon with a stern word or three. Do you do anything besides trying to impress girls with your terrible swordsmanship?”

“Behave.” Shiro repeated, venom in his voice. Makisa folded his arms and rolled his eyes, but said little more.

Aya had become a bit more acquainted with these two than she would have hoped. Shiro was the guard of the inn, as something of a favor to its nameless owner. Makisa, meanwhile, was a freeloader who was banned from nearly every other inn and tavern on Gensokyo except for this one and exactly two others. The two almost never left its confines except for some more under-handed shenanigans in the case of the latter, rain or shine, and thus usually argued with each other or pestered her over simple things. She honestly felt bad for Shiro – a simple young man who couldn’t make the cut as a Demon Slayer, an already rare breed, reduced to acting as a katana-wielding scarecrow for a middle-of-nowhere village. It wasn’t as if he was ill of spirit or character like Makisa was, simply...lacking the fire and ambition his stronger peers did.

Her attention shifted to the doorway of the inn as she heard the door slide open. Makisa quirked an eyebrow in curiosity, while Shiro’s hand drifted back to the handle of his katana. A lone figure was standing there, soaked from the rain. They were clad head-to-knees in a cloth cloak that was torn and fraying around the edges. There was a bit of a stumble in their step, but they walked without saying a word or acknowledging the presence of those around them. Something Aya noticed right away was their shoes – thin, almost like morning slippers, a faint jade green obscured mostly by heavy mud from the rain outside. Nothing that looked appropriate for travel in the rain.

‘Probably some poor wanderer,’ Aya decided before she quickly wrote down what she just saw. The nameless figure would slap down some coins on the front counter in front of the portly man who owned the establishment. He looked at the coins curiously and then bit one with his teeth. Aya was about to return to her own thoughts when she heard the roaring laughter of the owner.

“You making some kind of joke, stranger? This money’s no good here.”

The figure did not answer, simply staring back.

“You understand what I’m saying? Take your little gimmick coins and come back when you have some actual mon.” He said, slapping the coin back on the table. The stranger did not answer, but Aya’s curiousity had been piqued. Quietly she stood up and stalked on over to the front counter of the inn, looking at the ‘gimmick coins’. On a glance, it looked like the innkeeper had made a simple mistake and turned down perfectly good mon coins – but on closer inspection, Aya could see the characters on the corners of the coin didn’t match what she usually saw, only having a passing resemblance. In fact, they looked like…

“Chinese?” She wondered aloud. Was this a foreigner? She turned to look at the cloaked figure, but they remained statue still. She could vaguely see some bangs of red hair stretching down from her hood, but their face remained obscured.

Then, their stomach let out a very audible growl.

Aya had to suppress a soft giggle. Had this poor foreigner been wandering around Gensokyo without any idea of where anything was? Had they made a poorly-timed journey into this war-torn world? How long had they gone without food? The mental image of this mud-covered traveler stumbling about with no idea what they were doing was entertaining to her. Still, she sympathized enough that she didn’t want to let someone go hungry. She took some coins out of her pocket and put them on the table. “Give them a room and some bread, please.” Aya said in a sing-song voice.

The innkeeper rolled his eyes before handing over half a loaf of bread to the stranger. The stranger then snatched it away and began biting into it like a wild animal, scarfing it down like it was their last day on Earth. Aya cringed a little bit and gave a sheepish smile. “Uh...yeah, you enjoy that!” She said before moving away. The stranger turned and looked at her, and for the first time, Aya could see their face. Surprisingly fair features and a soft, feminine face stared back at her with green eyes. Even as they ate their food and had regarded their surroundings with stoic indifference, they had lit up a little bit at the apparent gesture of kindness.

It felt nice, Aya decided, even if it was just something she had done on a whim.

The stranger had finished the bread by the time she glanced back at them, before they walked off to one of the rooms, tracking mud as they went. The innkeeper growled in annoyance as he saw this before throwing a mop over at Shiro. “You! Get cleaning!” The would-be samurai was hit in the face by its pole, grunting in pain and grumbling to himself before he began to clean the mud tracks on the wooden floor.

“What a strange girl...at least, I think they were a girl.” Aya wondered out loud, tapping her chin with her treasured pen.

“You falling in love, Aya?” Makisa, of course, couldn’t resist chiming in. “With some China girl, at that?”

“There’s a spot in Hell reserved just for you, Makisa,” Aya spat.

“Yup, and if it’s anything like reality, I’ll be surrounded by spiteful and unfriendly women,” Makisa said with a shrug before his lackadaisical expression turned a bit more thoughtful. “She might be one of those pilgrims coming in from the mainland. You know, the youkai from the far East coming to Gensokyo before magic is totally starved out from the outside world.”

“Youkai from the Far East...” Aya paused to consider this. “How could you tell?”

Makisa snorted derisively. “What human would willingly come to this land, much less from China?”

As much of a scoundrel and troublemaker as Makisa was, he did have a particular insight most polite people simply lacked. It was one reason she could barely tolerate his presence – that sort of intuition was invaluable for her writings. It did make record-keeping just a bit easier when she had more than the polite, ‘public’ information she got from ordinary humans.

Then, the front door slammed back open and heavy boots stepped against the hardwood of the Inn’s floor. Aya jumped in her seat when she saw who it was – in the center, a woman with long dark hair tied back into a ponytail, with black plate armor covering her body with two blades sheathed at her side. On both sides of her were two men donned in armor you would see on samurai, but their symbols – one of a rose, the other of triangles arrayed in a pattern, were scratched out with what looked like damage from a blade. Demon Slayers, Aya realized. She quickly averted eye contact and covered her face with the book she was writing into, hoping they would ignore her. The woman would step in front of the Innkeeper. “I’ve heard the Maiden of Miare is in town. Would you happen to have seen her?”

“Can’t say I have.” The Innkeeper said, warily. “At least, haven’t seen her.” He would be cleaning a mug with a cloth rag.

“Really, now…?” The woman asked. Aya couldn’t see what she was doing, but she tensed as she heard her footsteps approaching. She then felt a strong arm grab at her wrist and pull her up, bringing her face-to-face with the woman’s almost serpentine smirk. Her other hand then grabbed at Aya’s head, holding a tuft of her purple hair as she squirmed in her grasp.

“L-let me go…!” Aya called out in protest, her book and pen falling down to the floor.

“Then who is this, taking notes by herself in some hole in the ground?” The woman asked with a laugh.

“What do you think you’re doing…?!” Shiro had spoken up and quickly approached, grabbing the woman’s arm and trying to pull Aya free. “You should know how important she is to us...to every human being! We couldn’t survive without her records!” Aya cursed herself. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a big secret – not many humans had natural purple hair, after all. But to be grabbed by a Demon Slayer like this, it made this woman’s intent obvious. “Let her go!”

“Shiro, get back!” Aya called out to warn him. But the swordsman had already been approached from behind by the two larger ronin. Sensing their approach, Shiro drew his own blade in a flash and quickly ducked out of the way, a large axe barely missing his head. Where had they been hiding those weapons? ‘Spatial technique?’ She wondered out loud, her suspicions confirmed as the second one pulled a spear out of the air and tried to stab at the would-be samurai. Shiro parried the attack with a swing of his katana before slicing the pole of the spear in half. He lunged forward and then jammed the tip of his blade into the opening of the man’s armor in his neck. Blood spilled out as the steel of his blade emerged from the other side, the armored man choking on his own blood and the blade as his hands flailed uselessly before dropping both halves of the spear. Shiro’s eyes went wide with horror as he saw the light leave the man’s eyes, not used to the act of killing. He tried to pull the blade out, but his katana would snap as the blade parted from the handle, the metal of the dull steel unable to withstand the strain.

“O-oh, Gods...” Shiro was stunned with both the weight of his actions. He had been a simple guard, not a true soldier, and had never truly taken a life up until this point. Distraught at both this and his broken blade, he stared in a stupor before he noticed the looming shadow of the still-living guard approaching him with an axe.

“SHIRO!” Aya screamed before his head snapped up in realization – a moment too late. His head was parted from his shoulders, an expression of horror frozen on his face as it rolled onto the table in front of Aya. She felt her stomach sink as blood emerged from his neck in a steady fountain, his body collapsing into an undignified heap as she let out a horrified scream, feeling tears in her eyes. She had only known the young man for a few days, but nothing she had seen made her wish death upon such a simple youth.

She continued to squirm in the woman’s grip, looking on over to see Makisa had his back to the wall as the scene unfolded, laughing nervously as he saw the scene unfold in front of him. The woman’s eyes turned to him and she gave a soft smirk. “Any objections, Kirisame?”

“Who, objections? Me? Nah, you seem to have this under control…!”

“Makisa, please!” Aya begged, only for the scoundrel to hop out the window and disappear into the rain. A scoundrel to the end. She felt her heart sink as the woman looked at her with a smirk.

“A shame, actually. Had the boy actually defeated both of my guards, I would have let them live. It wouldn’t be as if they stood a chance against me, after all.” It was true, and Aya knew it. Demon Slayers were humans who unlocked power by cultivating their souls and bodies to exceed their limitations, to walk the line between what was ‘normal’ and what was considered a youkai. Ones who defied the natural cycle of life and death for the sake of power. They were tolerated in this day and age because of the need to defend other humans from from the equally powerful youkai, but that meant they were allowed to run roughshed on their ‘lessers’ so long as they didn’t meaninglessly slaughter them. They could get away with whatever they desired...and almost no one became a Demon Slayer out of altruism.

Which meant…

“You...you plan on using me to get stronger?” Aya asked fearfully.

“What else would I need you for, girl? Writing me a book?” She asked mockingly. “The heart of the Child of Miare would give me the insight I need to surpass the good Lord of this land. Consider it an honor – the vessel of your soul becoming a meal for me will be the first stepping stone to my own glory, my ascent into godhood.” She explained, disturbingly sincere about the notion of it being an honor.

Yes, it was true. Demon Slayers were indeed little better than youkai – perhaps worse, in some respects. That was why she wandered and hid herself, to avoid becoming a pawn in the games they played against both each other and youkai in the name of power. But now, her luck had finally run out because she just wanted to stay out of the rain…!

“Please...” Aya couldn’t believe it. She was reduced to begging, feeling her eyes starting to well up.

“Don’t cry, stupid girl. This world is not for the soft-hearted.” The woman slammed her down onto the table, her already-weak body hurt from the impact as she was held down by the neck. She held out her opposite palm, poised just outside of her chest as she gauged where her heart was...the very organ beating and pounding with her fear and desperation.

“Shizuka...” The surviving guard spoke up.

The woman, Shizuka, cared little for whatever concerns he had. “We’ll talk about what to do afterwards later, Taro.”

“No, not that, there’s som-”

There was a crack in the air, like the sound of a rifle going off. There was a rush of air followed immediately after the sound of iron slamming into flesh, the other guard’s armor shattering like glass as he was launched into the air and then hit the wall with the force of a cannonball. The rush of wind would cause Shizuka to lose her grip and be launched as well, before she caught herself in mid air and landed on a nearby table. Aya rolled onto the floor and hit the ground from the impact. She looked up to see the guard was dead – his head was split open like a crushed fruit, the blood splattered onto the wall like a blooming lotus flower and the remnants being a mess of bones and teeth, with an eyestalk dangling from the gore. Her stomach sank and a desire to vomit crawled along her neck, but one realization let her keep her composure: She had just been saved.

Her eyes drifted up to see the stranger, still wearing a rain-covered cloak, but their hood was down – she could see a beautiful woman’s face glaring at Shizuka. She had steely green eyes and a sharp glare directed at Shizuka. She could feel murderous intent emanating from the foreign woman, her stance relaxed and her arms at her sides. Shizuka looked on curiously.

“Another Demon Slayer…? You’re an idiot for getting in my way. She’s mine. Stand down and I’ll let you leave here alive.”

The foreigner did not answer. Her only reply was quietly cracking her knuckles once, then doing the same for the opposite hand. “Will you alive?” She asked, being the first time Aya had heard the woman’s voice – her accent was thick and her Japanese was a mess. It took her a moment to realize she was talking to her.

“Ah...yes, I’ll be okay...I think...” Aya responded weakly.

The foreigner only nodded before taking a step forward towards Shizuka.

“You really are an idiot. I’ve mastered the secret technique of space and boundaries...you stand no chance against me!” Shizuka boasted as she drew a pair of knives. In a blink, she was no longer standing on the topple table, instead a foot away from the foreigner. Her dagger then cut along the woman’s side through her cloak, drawing a line of red where exposed flesh now was. She then disappeared, being a few feet away almost instantly.

“You couldn’t follow it at all, could you? I can make and destroy any amount of distance between you and me. By the time you realize I’ve attacked you, it’s too late. I can just cut at your knees, your arms, your throat, and tear you apart before you could even hope to dodge it.” Shizuka said with a wide smirk on her face. “I’ll make your death as slow and painful as I possibly can. You deserve that much for killing one of my men and daring to deny me my prize.”

The foreigner didn’t move or change her stance at all. Aya couldn’t see her expression, but...her posture indicated either supreme confidence or hubris. She made no effort to defend herself or prepare for an attack. What was she doing, Aya wondered…?

“Don’t believe me, do you?!” Shizuka appeared, disappeared, and reappeared in a blink as she swiped the blade along the foreign woman’s face, opening a cut along her cheek. She was now standing across the room, licking some of the blood along her dagger. “I can do that as many times as I like. It’s even faster than you can react to it, as you can see…!”

What was she doing?! Was she trying to get herself killed? This Shizuka woman was obviously able to outpace her and attack almost instaneously. Why didn’t she move from where she was standing…?

“Now, I’m going to make you regret wasting my time…!” Just as Shizuka blinked out of existence, the foreigner finally moved, throwing her cloak off and tossing it to her left. She then grabbed at it as the cloak slumped over a human-shaped figure, grasping it around the neck. Two daggers hit the floor as the figure instinctively dropped them to grab at their own neck as they began choking, trying to struggle free. It took Aya a moment to realize that the cloak had covered Shizuka, who was now being grappled by the foreign woman. “Wh-what…?!” She choked.

“Difference between martial drawer and little girl with blade. Martial drawer knows boasting about strength is also boasting about not-greatness.”

Aya tried to make out the girl’s broken Japanese. Shizuka had somehow exposed her weakness by boasting about her strengths…?

“How did you…?!”

“Cowards talk too much. Coward wastes time, avoids close contact. React badly to closeness.” The foreign woman explained. Shizuka squirmed and struggled, but she could not move – whatever technique she used required her to be free of any restraints. The technique she boasted of was likely one she hadn’t truly mastered...Aya couldn’t imagine a Demon Slayer being put down by an elementary grapple like that! “You lose.”

“M-mercy! Please! Spare me! I’ll never hurt her or anyone else again, please…!” Realizing she was in a bad position, Shizuka begged and kicked, trying to break free. Aya let out a sigh of relief, thinking that the battle was finally over.

“Your words. Not world for soft hearts.”

“Wh--”

In a blink, the foreign woman’s arm glowed brightly, filling the room with rainbow lights before her palm slammed into Shizuka’s ribcage. Her eyes went wide with horror before she coughed up a torrent of blood, little globs of flesh and veins following seconds afterwards before the foreigner dropped her body on the floor, dead.

“Not world for you.”

Aya stared, dumbfounded. Was this woman another Demon Slayer? Had she saved her life out of the kindness from her heart, or was she just hoping to use her like Shizuka was. All she could do was stare until the woman, clothed in a green dress-uniform she didn’t recognize, caked in the blood of the now-dead Demon Slayer would walk up to her prone form. Aya struggled to say something. The woman answered first.

“Meiling Hong. My name.”

“...A-aya.”

“Aya,” Meiling repeated as she moved closer to the terrified girl. Seeing her up close, everything about her posture and stance felt...wild, uncontrolled, like an animal struggling to act like a person. The walk she walked was stiff unrefined, a complete contrast to the calm discipline she demonstrated in using martial arts. Despite this, when she was standing just a few feet away from Aya, she pressed a fist into one palm and bowed. “Thank you for the meal.”

All Aya could do was stare, dumbfounded, up at the blood-soaked stranger.

Where there was rain, there was thunder.


End file.
